Mother's Day ... LET'S EAT!!!

 Good morning from sunny California.  I'm definitely running in slow motion this morning, feeling a little worse for wear, but it was all worth it.  No worries, your glasses are just fine ... it's the picture that's blurry!!

Saturday was a piece of cake ... I mean how could you go wrong with a crew like this!!  It was made even better by not having to be there until 9:00 in the morning to begin the Mother's Day Breakfast extravaganza!  This is our biggest event of the year.  We used to get by with serving 300 folks.  We must be doing something right because we expected 500 this year.  That's a LOT of food!

It started with panning 12 restaurant sheets pans with sausage and filling I think seven pans of fruit cocktail.  Anyone remember getting that as a kid?  It always ended up in jello at our house.

I was really good this time ... not doing much of anything and practicing my delegation skills.  It was pretty funny watching these guys use the new huge slicer to cut four 20 pound hams into small slices.  You've heard of "when pigs fly"?  Well it was flying all over the kitchen, making a lovely mess.

Apparently I'm a neat freak .... the MEN, not so much!   

The roses came in ... beautiful, but where's the wonderful sweet smell?  Nothing ... there was nothing, but they sure were pretty!!  Every Mom and Grandmom got a long stemmed one to take home.

This crew ... they prepped all the food, covered all the tables, set up all the chafing dishes, hooked up two huge coffee pots so they wouldn't blow any breakers, along with milk and juice stations before we headed out.  It took two hours of frenzied chaos.

And then ... let the cooking begin!!  Bright and early at 5:30 am I was standing at the door waiting for the keeper of the key.  No I don't want a key ... NEVER have a key because then you have to be down there MORE often to open the door.

I turned everything on and went straight to work making NINE Denver omelet casseroles in those huge restaurant pans.  This was just a tiny pan I made with the leftover eggs, which by the way I brought home because it's yummy.  It was the only one left.

There was madness for the next six hours as I threw pans around the kitchen like a crazy woman screaming HOT PAN!!!  There's just something about pans that will sear you to the bone that attracts folks ... like moths to a flame.  I know these wonderful people are just trying to help, but there's only a 4 by 9 foot space between the eight oven doors and the table.  That's not enough room for more than ONE body.  

In spite of my saying I'm good ... please just let me do it alone ... they jump in and try to help ..... and get BURNED every time.  It only took one painful burn this time for everyone to stay on the other side of the table.  It makes me feel terrible.

The last I heard we had MORE than 500 people sitting down for breakfast.  Of course we had to have the mandatory picture, which always takes ten minutes for everyone to line up.

Can you believe this small crew fed over 500 people ham, sausage, scrambled eggs, Denver casseroles, biscuits, sausage gravy, hash browns, waffles with strawberries, fruit cups and danish in a little over four hours.  Pretty crazy.

I do have to say however that MEN are SO different from women.  Maybe it's because we have to do all the cleaning.  When I cheesed up the casseroles, there was not a speck of cheese on the table.  When the GUYS did it, there was cheese in a three foot radius!  Why is that?

Lastly, we served up fabulous Costco cakes for dessert.  The leftover food (mostly scrambled eggs and biscuits) was taken down to the Mens homeless shelter.  Lucky for me, I got the last three small pieces of cake.  It was slated for the trash can, but I caught it just in time!!!

And so ended another wonderful Mother's Day at the Elks Lodge.  I crashed on the couch when I got home yelling TYLENOL ... I NEED TYLENOL!!  I was like a tree falling in the forest ... no one heard me, so I got my own.

Surprisingly I feel great this morning ... not even sore ... and I didn't burn any extremities ... at least not my own!!  It was a good day!!